Tag: childhood

I saw my motherher arms stretched wideas she welcomes me.I sink into her skinand breathe in her scentfeel her heart beatingclose to my face;I’m a child again.My innocent eyessearch her pale facebut she’s in shadowhidden by the darknessthat took her.

I’ve missed you.

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When I was younger, my favourite toy was a cardboard box. If I was faced with a Barbie, a remote controlled car, a bear and a box, I’d choose the box. I once made a cash machine with individual cardboard debit cards for each member of my family, their little faces painstakingly biro-d on as if they were also ID cards. I made paper bank notes and advice slips, which read somewhere along the lines of ‘eat more greens’ and ‘trim your toenails’.
I would slip my cardboard creation over my head and sit inside with a torch and all my paper ready. Each slot I’d cut had a post-it on the inside telling me which one needed money, an advice slip or a returned card pushed through. I’d wait for my mum’s card to be slid into the wonkily cut line marked

INSERT CARD HERE

My tiny robotic voice would ask for a pin and my mum would make beep boop noises as she tapped four numbers onto my carefully drawn pin pad. When my dad said he didn’t want an advice slip, my robot voice replied ‘No daddy, you have to take an advice slip!’ He laughed when I pushed trim your beard through the gap.
Another time I made an oven. I didn’t need no Eazy-Bake, I had my cardboard box. There was a car and a boat, a television and a laptop, complete with a cardboard mouse on a string and little paper screens that I would interchange, depending on whether I was playing ‘important business lady’ or ‘kid on Miniclip’.

Here I am, 21 years old and stood in my kitchen, confronted with a cardboard box. My initial thought was to flatten it, crush it down into the recycling bin and wait for the bin-men to decide its destiny. But before I’d pulled the tape from the first seam, I stopped. I remembered my ATM and my oven with its opening door and extractor fan. I smiled at the creative I used to be.

So, here I am now, 21 years old and sat on my kitchen floor with a cardboard guitar in my lap, smiling at the creative that I have grown into.